She threw open the shutters to let in the light.
Maka folded her arms against the windowsill, breathing in the perfumed scents of her flowers. Last night's storm had watered them well, and they bloomed brightly under the pale blue sky.
Closing her eyes,she allowed herself to bask in the warm glow of the sun. The high-pitched drone of a honeybee caught her attention and she listened with her eyes shut as the insect settled on the petals of her flowers then flew lazily through the air to the next set of nectars.
Disturbing the tranquility was the sudden sound of the shutters across from her clattering open. She looked up. A man was wrestling with the latch to keep his blinds in place.
Despite his messy white hair, he looked young, especially as the arms settling the shutters in place were tan and smooth. His lips were currently turned down in a slight frown as he struggled with his task, but Maka could tell he'd be handsome when he smiled.
"Hello," Maka said pleasantly.
He glanced her way. "Hey," he replied. The shutters finally acquiesced, and he disappeared into the dark depths of his apartment. He returned almost immediately with small jars clutched in his hands.
Maka cocked her head as the man placed them on his outside sill. "Sun tea," he said by way of an explanation. When she still looked nonplussed, the young man hesitated, glancing back into his room before turning to face her fully. "It's tea that infuses as it sits in the sun."
"Oh," Maka said. "I didn't know that. I'm a coffee drinker. Much to the chagrin of my mother."
The young man tapped the lid of one of the jars with a blunt nail. "Well, you should try it. It's really good."
"Do you just drink it as is?"
"Nah, you drink it cold once it's done."
"So then it's just iced tea?"
"No, it's much better than regular iced tea." He sounded almost affronted. "It tastes a little different, better. Like the sun gave a little of its warmth to make it." Looking suddenly bashful, he coughed. "Sorry, wow, that was stupid."
"No, I liked it! I thought it was poetic."
He scratched at the back of his neck. "Well either way, give it a try." And he lifted his hand in farewell as he melted back into the shadows.
Later that week, Maka strolled by the tea section in the supermarket, but for the first time, she felt her footsteps falter. She glanced up and down the shelves at a loss. There were so many boxes, and nothing seemed to indicate which ones would make a good sun tea. Finally, she grabbed a box at random and walked away before she could change her mind.
The next day, Maka was trying to find a place for her washed-out jam jar among her flowers when the young man appeared again at his window. Maka shook the jar at him, its contents sloshing against the glass.
"Look, I took your advice!"
His eyebrows rose towards his hairline, but then he grinned, sharp and toothy. She had been right; he was handsome when he smiled. "Oh nice. What kind of tea did you get?"
"Uh." Maka strode away from the window and towards her kitchenette, her eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden darkness of her apartment. Through the blinking sun spots in her vision, she swiped the box off the counter and returned to the window. "'Jasmine-scented green tea'" she read aloud, holding the box aloft for his inspection.
"That sounds good."
"I'm holding you to that," she teased lightly. He smiled again.
"Come back in a few hours to give it a try. You have my word, it will be the best tea experience you've ever had."
It was.
A few days after that, Maka found herself watering her flowers with a gift from her father (an elephant-shaped watering can - he thought she was twelve) when she heard the sounds of a piano wafting through the air from the apartment across from her. She set the can down to listen better.
She hadn't seen the young man since she'd set out her first batch of sun tea (there had been plenty more since then). Despite the fact that neither of them had closed their shutters since opening them for the summer, he didn't seem to spend a lot of time in what she thought must be his living room. Maka lived in a studio apartment, so she had little choice in what room she spent her time; it was all the same room. It appeared that the young man must hide away in his bedroom most of the time.
But now she could hear the lilting noise of a piano through their open windows. It didn't sound like a recording; there were too many brief pauses punctuated by a liberal amount of cursing.
She had never heard anything quite like it before. The music was dark, haunting, but lonely, searching - all this in one song. It moved something that felt very much like her heart. The darkness of the song seemed at odds with the bright sun overhead.
She let the sounds wash over her as she stood at the windowsill. A slight shiver ran down her spine as the last note trembled in the air, but when it finally faded into the ether, Maka clapped loudly.
The young man suddenly appeared at his window. His eyes looked bloodshot as he stared at her. "You heard that?" he croaked.
"I did. Was I not supposed to?"
"I… it wasn't something I show to a lot of people."
"Oh. Well why not? I really liked it!"
"You did?" He sounded incredulous.
"Yeah!"
"What did you think about it?"
"Uh, that is was really great?"
"...You're not exactly a music scholar, are you?"
"Hey!" she cried, feeling her temper flare. He held up his hands in a placating gesture.
"Sorry, sorry… it's just… not many people, uh, like the stuff I compose myself. I play other people's music at clubs but I'm never invited to play my own work."
"You wrote that yourself?"
"Yeah."
"That's incredible!" she said excitedly. "Wow, that is so cool."
The young man chuckled. "Well, thanks. Glad someone likes it… even if they're not much of an expert."
"That someone is Maka," and she winced inwardly at how awkward that sounded, but stuck out her hand anyway. She couldn't quite reach across the alleyway, grunting exaggeratedly as she tried to stretch towards him. He laughed and tried to extend his hand to hers. Even with his arm out, they weren't close enough to shake hands.
"Soul," he said, bringing his arm back into his apartment and instead raising it in a wave. "My name is Soul."
Soul owned a cat.
Or at least, a cat had decided to take up residence for the day on his windowsill. Maka had been chopping onions for dinner when she'd heard a loud meow. Confused by its proximity, she wandered around her apartment looking for a feline intruder, but finally movement through the open window caught her attention. The cat was a thin animal, but it looked well-fed. It wound sinuously around the jars of tea Soul had left out, its steps sure despite the tiny ledge and the long fall. It twitched it tail as Maka watched it.
"Hi kitty." The tail twitched faster. "Hiii kitty."
It meowed in reply. Maka smiled in delight.
"Meow!" she said.
"Meow!" replied the cat
"You're so talkative. You're such a noisy kitty, yes you are! Yes you are! Meow!"
The cat sat down, twisting its tail around its little paws and turning its amber eyes on Maka. It meowed again.
"Hellooo pretty kitty! Hello kitty cat!"
"Are you talking to my cat?" Soul appeared in the window, amusement written into his features.
"She's a great conversationalist," Maka said, standing up from where she had been kneeling. "Maybe even better than her owner."
"Ooh, low blow,"he said, reaching out to scratch the cat behind the ears. "Her name is Blair."
"Hi Blair!" Maka smiled across the alley separating their buildings. "And hi Soul."
"Hi," he chuckled. "Don't let me interrupt your important conversation though."
"We were just discussing how sad your windowsill looks," Maka said. "It's got three mismatched jars and that's it. You need some color over there."
"Yeah but you barely have room for your sun tea," he said, gesturing at her flower box. You've got the jars stuck in the dirt."
"Yes, but look how pretty my flowers are!" She spread her arms as if a field lay in front of her, not three small impatiens. Soul laughed, getting the joke. "I'm just saying, get a vase or something! You have all that room to play with."
"I'll think about it," he said, leaning his arms against his windowsill. "What are you up to this evening?"
"I was cooking dinner until your cat started talking to me." As if on cue, Blair jumped down into Soul's apartment and out of sight. "Ayp, and now she's leaving me, She thinks I'm a bad chef."
"Are you?" Soul asked good-naturedly.
"I am very good at a couple things," she said. "When those things are rice, pasta, and instant ramen. But I'm trying to get better."
"Oh yeah? What are you making?"
"Some sort of pork chop dish. Super simple, so I'm encouraged."
"That does sound good," Soul said. "Tonight I'm just eating at the club before my set. I'd pack something, but I don't have a lot of room on my bike."
"Do you bike to work?"
Soul grinned. "I ride in style. I meant my Harley."
"Wait, do you mean that orange monstrosity I always see out there?"
"Did you just insult my baby?!"
Maka sucked in air through her teeth, face screwed up in a wince. "I think I did, yeah. That thing is funny looking."
Soul put a hand over his heart, mock wound evident in his voice. "First you insult my conversational skills, then you insult my Harley. Cruel, Maka."
"Does it even out if I let you insult something about me?"
"Fine. You have fat ankles."
She started to glance down, but caught herself. "You've never even seen my ankles!"
He grinned a wicked grin. "You're right though, I do feel better."
"You're lucky I can't reach across this alley and kick your ass with my fat ankles."
Soul cocked his head to the side, looking oddly contemplative. "Yeah, lucky," but his voice was thoughtful.
The strong wind pulled at her shutters as Maka struggled with them. The rain hadn't started yet, but the air was pulsing with electricity. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as the thunderheads rolled overhead.
Maka was attempting to close the window, but reluctantly; she'd left it open for weeks now and she did love a good storm. The landlady's rug, on the other hand, would not, so she was trying to shut them. The shutters seemed to sense her hesitation, and fought valiantly against her.
There was a loud crash and a garbled "Shit!" and Maka peered through the gap in her blinds to see Soul wrestling with his, one of which seemed to have escaped his grasp.
"Quite a storm coming!" Maka called out, cracking the window open a little wider. Soul turned towards her.
"Yeah. I had to take my tea in. Cat's hiding under the bed. I wish I didn't have to close the windows, though. I love listening to the rain, but the thunder freaks Blair out."
"Aw, poor kitty!" Maka said. "I'm sure animals don't have a true understanding of the concept of the displacement of air molecules by electricity and the resulting noise of the molecules reuniting being what they're hearing."
"I think she's a dumb cat afraid of scary noises," said Soul sarcastically, "but I'm glad I know where to go now for a nerdsplanation, thanks."
"Hey!" she protested, but whatever she might have retorted with was drowned out by the reunion of air molecules above as the first clap of thunder sounded, followed by a sudden deluge of rain.
Maka held out her hands to feel the cold water hit her palm. The rain was coming straight down so her rug was safe for the moment.
"It smells amazing," Soul said softly, but she was still able to hear him over the pounding of the rain. "If there were one smell that reminds me of what it's like to be alive, it's the smell of rain."
Maka took a deep breath, lungs expanding in her chest and filling with the earthy, metallic scent of the rain. "Yeah," she said, exhaling.
He leaned out of his window, tongue out between sharp teeth; Maka could see a single raindrop hit his nose and splash onto his cheeks.
"It also tastes delicious," he said after successfully catching a droplet.
"It's actually probably pretty polluted," said Maka. "Y'know, the air has a lot of pollutant around which the water droplets form-"
"More nerdosity!"
"I'm just pointing it out!"
"I'm gonna spit some pollutants at you, hold on." Soul opened his jaw wide in the rain. After a moment, he said, "This isn't working."
Maka laughed. Seemingly bolstered by her reaction, Soul continued.
"At least I can flick water at you, here we go." He held his hands out in the rain, cupped to catch the water. "Yah!" he said, throwing them out to her.
Maka put her own hands up against the nonexistent threat. "You're getting me wet!" she cried.
Soul blinked once, then resumed flicking water at her. "Well, you were in need of a shower anyway, I'm sure."
"Oh, you know so much about my bathing habits?"
"I know you're at least getting a bath now."
Maka swung her shutters closer together until she was peering through the gap again. "Ha ha! Now you can't get me!"
Soul did the same, one burgundy visible through the gap. "Well now we're even."
She laughed again. "What did that accomplish? I wasn't throwing water at you!"
"Hey, I've got a two-week-no-bath streak going on and I'm not risking it."
"Ew, you're joking. Soul. You're joking, right?" She could see one silver eyebrow waggle behind the blinds. "Soul!" He laughed.
Without opening the windows too much, Maka batted at the rain, fruitlessly trying to send the water his way.
"You clearly need this, you're disgusting." Soul stuck his tongue between the shutters at her, accompanied by loud raspberry noises. "Ew, this is what I'm talking about, you're gross-"
Their laughter lasted through the night, long after the rain had petered out and the clear crisp moon threw the wet sidewalks into harsh relief.
Maka groggily opened her eyes to glaring sunlight. She glanced venomously at the clock: 11:39am. She groaned, throwing a hand across her eyes; she hadn't slept this late in ages. They'd stayed up talking a lot later (earlier?) than she'd intended. Not that it hadn't been fun, but now she was in desperate need of something a little stronger than sun tea.
She padded around the apartment on bare feet, cradling her biggest mug of coffee. A slight chill hung in the air after the storm and she shivered despite the watery sunlight.
Settling into her couch, Maka debated flipping on the TV, but decided against it, opting instead to listen to the noises of the city below as it stirred with the renewed vigor of a freshly cleansed town. Perched on the cushions, Maka kept her ears trained towards her window, alert for sounds of her neighbor. She didn't let herself think of a whispered conversation below the stars, secrets murmured through the empty space between their window ledges. She didn't let herself think about the silvery moonlight in Soul's hair almost making it glow.
After a while, Maka heard a sleepy groan of "Stupid cat," and she smiled. Unfolding her slightly stiff legs, she walked to the window to peer across the gap into Soul's apartment. The sunlight was at just the right angle for her to see him a few feet back from the window bending over something on the floor. He must have just woken up, because he was shirtless and his hair was tousled and limp.
"What did the kitty do?" she called out. Soul looked over his shoulder, then back to his task.
"Left me a nice hairball on the floor," he grumbled. "Lemme take care of this." He stood up, a wad of paper towels clutched in his hands and disappeared beyond Maka's line of sight. He returned after a few minutes, rubbing damp hands together and yawning so wside Maka thought it was a miracle his jaw didn't fall off. But he still hadn't put on a shirt.
Maka took a long draught of her coffee, smacking her lips appreciatively. "Some benefits to drinking coffee," she said in a singsong voice.
"Mph," was all he replied, resting his forearms against the windowsill, eyes screwed up against the sun. "M'getting there."
"Look at my beautiful flowers," Maka said, running a finger along one turgid petal. Soul rubbed the heel of his hand into an eye, trailing down his cheek to his chin; Maka could hear the subtle scratch of stubble against his palm.
"I'm looking at 'em," he grumbled.
"Well if you'd taken my advice, you could have had really pretty flowers too!" She waved a hand at his barren window ledge.
"I wouldn't know what to get."
"What's your favorite flower?" she asked.
"I don't think I have one." Soul rested his chin in his palm. "Gimme some ideas."
"I don't know, what colors do you like?"
"Black," he said immediately.
Maka rolled her eyes.
Soul chuckled. "Okay, fine. What is your favorite flower then?"
"Oh gosh, I don't know. Maybe daffodils? That's hard to choose."
"It's like picking a favorite color."
"Oh, hush," she said as he laughed again. "That's not even that funny."
"Probably," Soul said, putting his forehead to the ledge. "I am definitely not awake yet."
"Do you want some coffee?"
Soul let out a low groan.
"Hmm?"
"Okay, yes, fine." He lifted his head.
"Do you have a coffeemaker?"
"I do, I'm not totally uncivilized."
"Could've fooled me," Maka said, eyes sweeping over the slope of his shoulders, "but hang on a sec. I'll get the bag and toss it to you. Don't drop it! It's still almost full, and I'm making you throw it back when you're done."
"I'll be careful," he said, smiling.
"You better," she admonished playfully, setting her mug down as she moved towards the kitchen.
Four days later, there was a small vase of daffodils on Soul's windowsill.
"We should hang a laundry line between the buildings."
Maka looked up. She had been reading a book, feet propped up in the open window. Soul had been imitating her, PSVita in hand, but now he was standing, examining the frame of his window.
"So I can show off my underwear for all the world to see?" she asked incredulously.
"Don't want people to see your panties?" he teased.
"Ugh, no. And I hate that word." Maka put her thumb in the book to hold her place and stood to join Soul.
"Jeez, it's like a 50/50 split with women on that word," Soul said, rapping on the wooden frame with his knuckles. "Everyone has a different preference."
"I think my preference is that the entire city not see my underwear," she retorted.
Soul grinned rakishly at her. "Why? What scandalous panties is Maka Albarn hiding?"
"What did we just go over- No, they're not scandalous, they're just underwear. They're not meant to be seen!"
"Oh come on, now I'm really curious. You gotta show me a pair."
"Are you asking for my underwear? Most neighbors ask to borrow a cup of sugar."
"There is a dirty, dirty joke in there, but I am refraining from making it."
Maka rolled her eyes. "How very generous of you."
"So does that mean I get a pair?"
"Oh, now you're keeping them?"
"I mean, I did ask nicely." Soul waggled his eyebrows.
"You're ridiculous," Maka said, but she was grinning. She felt a sudden surge of bravery. "How about I give you something better?"
"What would that be?"
She met his gaze across the empty space between their apartments. Bringing her fingers gently to her lips, she blew him a soft kiss, never breaking eye contact.
Soul reached out, into the gap, and closed his fingers. "Much better," he said quietly.
The days seemed to melt together, like thin drips of ice cream down the cone on a hot summer's night, the hazy mornings fading into rainy evenings. Their windows stayed open, paint peeling in the harsh sunlight.
They didn't see each other every day; sometimes they got busy with other things. They talked about the world beyond their windows, mentioned their activities outside of their apartments, but as if each were afraid of breaking the spell, neither voiced the idea of meeting downstairs. There was a tightness in her chest, one that ached to close the gap between them, separated by jars and flowers and a forty foot drop, but the feeling stayed locked behind her lips.
She had never seen a woman in his apartment, never seen anyone who might resemble a significant other, but she never asked; the fear of an answer she didn't want to hear kept her silent. But he smiled at her every time he saw her, a smile she knew somehow he didn't use often, and it was enough.
Maka fanned herself lazily with a piece of folded paper. Her window was wide open in an attempt to catch the non-existent breeze. The TV kept saying words like "drought" and "hottest week on record" and she hadn't seen Soul for four days. She groaned. Could she afford an air conditioning unit this month? She couldn't remember what her bill had been like last month, and the extra electricity it would consume… She fanned herself faster, sweat rolling down her brow.
There was movement across the gap and Maka sat up straight. She could just make out a head of white hair through the gloom of his apartment. "Soul!" she cried happily.
The figure walked to the window and Maka gaped. It wasn't Soul, but just barely. The man standing framed by the wood was a bit taller, a bit broader, and his nose was a little longer, but other than that, he looked just like her neighbor.
"You're looking for Soul?" he asked tiredly.
She nodded mutely.
The man rubbed his eyes, and when he looked up again, he smiled at her, but there was something about the lines around his mouth and the circles under his eyes that made her stomach drop.
"I'm his brother, Wes," he said. He stuck his hand out as if by habit, but then withdrew it, seeing how far the gap was. "I didn't realize how close these apartments were together."
"Yeah," Maka managed.
Wes started looking around the apartment, at a loss for what to say. There was a high-pitched ringing in Maka's ears, and her vision was tunneling.
"What happened?" she blurted out.
Wes glanced back at her. "Ah." His eyes glistened, and he pressed his lips together, looking away. "He… ah…" He shrugged his arms helplessly. "That stupid motorcycle."
Despite the heat, her blood ran cold. "Oh."
"Did you… know him well?"
Know him? Maka knew his deepest fears, his darkest secrets, whispered across the empty space under a star-filled sky. She knew exactly how he felt about his parents, their thin-lipped smiles at all his recitals, their tired eyes after every fight during high school. But she didn't know what Soul smelled like, didn't know what his skin felt like, didn't know what his lips tasted like. She had never even shaken his hand.
Wes shifted slightly, seemingly uncomfortable. Maka's eyes snapped to him.
"I guess I should get to work… I mean…" Wes looked down. "He doesn't need this apartment anymore."
Maka nodded once, reaching to grip the sides of her shutters. "Thank you for telling me," she said softly.
She closed the shutters slowly to shut out the light.